BDnF, la fabrique à BD

The app

BDnF lets you make comics, graphic novels or any other story that combines images and text. The full version is free on computers (Windows, macOS, Linux) and tablets (iPad, Android), with a simplified version for phones.

What’s inside

Several hundred graphic elements, prepared specially from the BnF’s heritage collections: characters, objects, backgrounds and speech bubbles. You come across 19th-century opera sets, photographs by Eugène Atget, and characters taken from illuminated medieval manuscripts or Belle Époque posters. Anyone can mix them with their own drawings and photos. Themed collections complete the set: Ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, Greek mythology, Japan…

Heritage becomes material for telling stories, not just for looking at.

Who it’s for

The app was designed first for the classroom, from primary to secondary school. Co-funded by the French Ministry of Education and the BnF, it was built and tested throughout its development by a panel of primary and secondary teachers, in real classroom conditions. It also lives outside school: with families, in libraries, and among comics fans.

An annual competition receives thousands of stories from schools, libraries and individuals across France.

My role

As production director, I took the project from concept to release on five platforms. I wrote the concept and the functional specifications, coordinated the development and design teams, managed the budget and the team, and led the editorial follow-up with the BnF.

What happened

More than 500,000 downloads across all platforms, and more than a million stories created. The app reached number one in the Education category of the Mac App Store, won the Ludovia Education Innovation Award, and UNESCO selected it for its Global Education Coalition.